In printers an image receiving sheet is used having one or both major opposing surfaces thereof which are treated or coated so as to optimally receive and reproduce a color image. These coatings on the one or both major surfaces are formed in layers using a relatively complex and expensive coating process. Because of such complex and expensive coating process, it is very advantageous to coat only one side of the image receiving sheet in order to reduce the cost of the image receiving sheets. Such cost saving is also achieved where the image receiving sheet is transparent.
In, for example, a thermal printer that can generate an image on only one side of a dye receiving sheet, it is important to properly orient the dye receiving sheet in a printing area of the printer when the dye receiving sheet has only one major surface that is coated to receive the dyes. More particularly, the one surface coated dye receiving sheet leads to problems if such dye receiving sheet is placed in the thermal printer with the non-coated side disposed to receive the dyes. Failure to properly orient the dye receiving sheet results in the color image not being reproduced. This reduces the efficiency of the printing operation.
One solution to this problem was implemented on the Kodak Model XL7700 thermal dye printer. In this printer, a series of notches is made off center on one edge of the dye receiving sheets, and labels are used (e.g., on the printer or the package of sheets) to guide a person to correctly orient the sheets while loading these sheets into the printer. This technique still allows for misprinting if the person loading the printer does not follow the labeled instructions.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,772 (M. Isogai), issued on Aug. 20, 1985, discloses a thermal printer which uses a notch in a dye donor sheet. The purpose of such notch is to indicate the color of the dye present within a dyesheet holder frame. More particularly, these frames are selectively fed from a holder of the frames, and the notch verifies that such frames are sequenced correctly but does not prevent misorientation of the dye donor sheets.
It is desirable to provide a technique which ensures that such image (dye) receiving sheets, which have only one side thereof with a coating formed thereon, are properly oriented when being placed in the printing area of a printer.